


Mistletoe

by thinkpink20



Category: The Beatles
Genre: Hamburg, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-24
Updated: 2012-02-24
Packaged: 2017-10-31 16:23:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/346107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thinkpink20/pseuds/thinkpink20
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hamburg era, Christmas time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mistletoe

Cynthia has mistletoe. She keeps moving around the room with it, eyes bright and mischievous and her blonde hair flashing in the lights from the Christmas tree. 

To be fair, it's the most boring party Paul has ever been to, especially after Hamburg, and John is sulking in the corner because of some row with Mimi. It surprises Paul how boring it is without John acting the clown, and he finds himself checking his watch every half hour or so.

"Pissing off so soon?" John shouts after him, when he sees Paul going into the kitchen. Some giggling little blonde girl carrying two glasses of shandy passes between them and Paul steps back to let her pass. She's winding and weaving and gives him the eye. He briefly considers giving her a pull, despite Dot decking the halls in the corner.

"Getting a drink," he replies to John, miming a glass coming up to his lips. "Want one?"

"Aye, get us two," John answers, sour, and turns away. Paul feels the miserable wave of his mood pervade the air between them.

The queue to get to the drinks table set up temporarily in the kitchen is massive and he steps politely between people. "Excuse me, sorry, thanks, ta mate," and finally gets to the beers. There's only two bottles left, something stout and strong and dangerous-looking. Well, it'll be like piss compared to Hamburg beer.

"Only this crap left," he says to John when he's back out in the parlour. Someone has put Buddy Holly on and the girls are dancing.

"Tastes like shite," John remarks, before he's even taken more than a swig. Paul decides he'd probably say that even if he presented John with Champagne.

They watch the party in silence for a bit, rolls of misery cascading from John and almost knocking Paul sideways. He almost considers pretending to need to the loo just to slip away. Almost. 

"So what's the problem with Mimi, then?"

John's sneer turns feral. "I was born, apparently; that's enough of a problem for her."

Paul inclines his head as though he's considering this. "Yeah, I suppose she's got a point, it was a bit of a shame. Still, we've got to put up with it now, haven't we?"

For the first time all evening, John looks something other than sour. It's not quite a smile, but it's getting there, so Paul goes on. "War, death, blind rhythm guitarists with big noses - all bad news for the world but a fact of life."

"D'you want me fist in your gob or are you going to shut up?" John asks, but it's okay because he's properly smiling now and Paul feels the misery defusing. He gives him a brief, shocked look then adds a grin of his own.

"Rubbish this party, isn't it?"

John takes another swig of beer, nods. He's leaning against someone's mother's prize antique china cabinet and his leather jacket is squashed artfully against the wood. He looks impossibly cool, Paul thinks. "Aye, all arse and shit. These lot wouldn't last a night on the Reeperbahn, would they?"

Glancing around the party at the girls in their quaint jiving skirts and their neatly set hair, Paul has to agree. Everything here seems slightly less colourful since Hamburg, like a television set with the sound turned down. It's boring and yet all at once also welcome. He can't work out how he feels about it, but he thinks he misses the stage in the Kaiserkeller more than he should and washing in the battered gents toilets. It's been a change waking up to the quiet of Forthlin Road and he's felt oddly lonely more than once without John's snoring, sleeping body on the bunk bed above him.

"Their eyes would fall out of their sockets," Paul says, and immediately John starts playing stupid, miming the Mickey Mouse cartoons they trail the main picture with at the flicks, eyes bulging in comedic shock. 

This is how the girls find them, John playing daft and Paul laughing at him, feeling the beer rush to his head all of a sudden, lighter than he expected to be. Dot appears to have found mistletoe too and has rosy cheeks from her turns about the room. She holds the sprig of mistletoe aloft over John, who is immediately back to his lounging self and she grins at him. "Come on then John, give us a kiss."

Ignoring propriety (and Cyn standing dutifully beside him) he goes straight for the lips. Just a smacker, but hardly chaste. Dot blushes and when they step apart Paul smiles politely at Cyn. She's also still clutching her mistletoe, but knows better than to offer it to anyone but John.

"You two playing cupid, then?" Paul asks, taking a final swig of his beer. He hadn't realised he was drinking it so quickly.

"Yeah, we're trying to get Lynn and Roge together, they've been sweet on each other for months," Cyn replies, and she looks flushed from the warmth of the central heating, turned up high against the blizzard outside. They're saying it's going to be a white Christmas, but Mike has a bet on at the bookies so Paul doubts it, with his brother's luck.

"Them two?" John frowns, neck straining above the crowd to get a look at Roger and Lynn, currently standing at opposite ends of the room, smiling shyly at one another. "No way, she can do better than him, he's a right drip."

"John!" Cyn says, scandalised. "He's a nice lad!"

"Aye, and she's a cracker, all tits and teeth." He gestures crassly at Paul and Paul can't stop the bubble of laughter that bursts from his chest in reply. "I've had her, she's a bonnie sort of girl, if you know what I mean."

Cyn blushes furiously beside him, then laughs along with everyone else. Paul slips a soft smile at her, when John looks away.

"You two start that lot off, did you?" John asks, glancing over into the corner where Margaret Whipper and Clive Cornwall appear to be investigating one another's tonsils rather closely. His hand is up her skirt and Paul realises he's caught John's eye, both of them spotting this at the same time. They share a quick, knowing grin.

"I think we might have done, actually!" Dot laughs, but it's cut short as she notices something across the room. Roger, it appears, is making his way across to Lynn. "Right Cyn, he's up," she says. "I'm going in." Mistletoe held high above her, Dot disappears into the crowd and for a second the three of them watch her, though Paul couldn't really care less whether Roger-the-drip pulls tonight or not.

"Seems like my mistletoe's going to waste," Cyn says, mock sadly, and John gives her a quick grin before pulling her into him with his free hand.

"Best put it to a bit of use then, hadn't we?" He asks, and Paul looks away politely as Cyn giggles, the noise quickly muffled by John's lips. He scans the crowd for Dot, now chatting eagerly to Roger, clearly egging him on. He feels a bit like a spare prick over here, standing lame whilst John attempts to devour Cynthia and he's about to quietly slip away when he accidentally turns their way and gets a look at them.

Paul feels an unexpected and embarrassing sort of thrill, like a cheap tingle in his stomach. It must be the beer or the small, cloying press of people in the room but he suddenly feels hot, like the shirt underneath his jumper is choking him tightly. There's no reason for his body to be responding so uncomfortably, but for several long seconds he finds himself unable to look away from John's mouth. 

It's such an honest sort of kiss, even though he's seen John with girls literally hundreds of times (shagging them, even) Paul feels strangely shocked by it. He can almost _see_ John needing, knows that feeling all too well himself, and seeing it suddenly brings a burst of that to life in his own stomach. 

Out of nowhere he acutely, starkly misses Hamburg; the stick floored bars and the illicit experience of sharing a girl with John or bunking up to make space for Rory or one of his Hurricanes. It's such a sharp feeling that Paul is somehow aware he shouldn't be having it here, in some nameless person's living room surrounded by mates and mates-of-mates.

He is honestly, definitely just about to look away when suddenly John opens his eyes. Almost as though he knew Paul was looking.

And once again Paul gets that wave of feeling in the pit of his stomach, that needing, desperate pull. He doesn't look away.

It should be uncomfortable, John kissing Cynthia whilst looking at Paul, but it isn't, and when Cynthia makes the quietest of satisfied moaning sounds, Paul somehow feels it in his own chest. As though it was _him._ And he still can't look away, despite the fact this is a busy party and John is looking at him like... 

Well, Paul doesn't have a word for the way John is looking at him. Like he's dinner, like he's fresh air after being stuck on the tiny stage at the Indra all night.

He doesn't know where it's come from, but he doesn't think he can blame the beer for this.

And then all of a sudden Dot is calling for him and John's eyes are closed again, pulling Cynthia closer than ever as Dot's soft, sweet hand is on his arm, tugging him around. 

"Come and persuade Roger that Lynn likes him," she's saying. "You understand girls better than he does, tell him she's keen."

 

\---------------

 

By the time Paul has finished persuading Roger-the-drip that Lynn's sweet on him (and really, she could do so, so much better, Paul thinks when he's up close - John was right) there are another group of people standing in the corner near the china cabinet; the familiar teddy boy DA and leather jacket are nowhere to be seen. Paul feels a brief stab of fear that he misread John's look earlier and that he's somewhere fuming, ready to knock Paul in the mouth for staring at him like a queer. But then he calms himself, grabs the nearest alcoholic thing from the drinks table and tells himself it was nothing, not really. It barely lasted any time at all, and John's look could have meant nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Still though, he feels like he needs to find him. Just to check. 

Upstairs the doors are all closed and Paul is savvy enough to know you don't go opening shut doors at parties unless you want to get an eyeful of something distinctly private, so he goes back down after using the bathroom and wades through the press of bodies now shifting to Elvis. John isn't having a crafty fag in the porch or fighting for drinks in the kitchen so aimlessly Paul makes for the back door. It's still snowing, he can see through the window, and it's bitter fucking cold so he doubts John will be out there, but he tries it anyway.

At first he thinks he's right; the empty, brick-walled back yard is quiet as the grave and just as cold, but then in the corner Paul catches the brief orange spark of a ciggie, flaring before the ash makes it dim. 

"Paul?"

John's voice sounds oddly cracked, and Paul steps out into the snow, pulling the door closed behind him.

"Shit, it's freezing!" He says, huddling further into his leather jacket. "What you doing out here?"

The thought that he might have been waiting - waiting for Paul - sends a delicious thrill through him.

"Too fucking crowded in there," John says, taking another drag on his ciggie. As Paul gets closer his eyes adapt to the darkness of the little terraced yard and he can make out John's features, drawn and tight. 

"Give us a go," he says suddenly, craving the nicotine, and John passes the fag across. Paul takes a deep, careful drag and tries not to think about John's lips around the butt just before him.

"Where'd you fuck off to?"

"Dot wanted me to to play cupid." Paul says, then passes the fag back over, realises he's disappointed when their fingers don't touch.

"Silly bitch," John mutters, and he doesn't bother correcting him. 

The snow keeps falling gently around them, coming down white and soundless and littering the top of the bin lid John is leaning against. It's going to be properly thick come the morning, and Paul imagines the long lie-in that will ensue. It's oddly peaceful out here and yet oddly tense too, waiting for something mighty. He feels a shiver that has very little to do with the cold.

"So did he cop a feel then, or what?"

"What?" Paul frowns, ripped from his thoughts.

"Drippy Roger - did he get a hand up the dress of the lovely Lynn?"

"Oh, yeah," Paul replies, remembering the shy little kisses. "She looked a bit frigid to me, though."

"Wasn't frigid when she was sucking my cock," John mutters, and the sudden, vivid image appears in Paul's mind unbidden. He feels an answering response in his body and tries to push it away.

"Roger's in for a good night, then," Paul hears himself say, breath condensing in the air in front of him.

"Aye, lucky bastard."

The covering of snow seems to mute every sound in the yard and out in the passageway beyond from a house backing onto the ginnel Paul can hear the soft hum of carols playing on a gramophone. Hark The Herald Angels Sing slips into God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen and he remembers achingly the sound of his mother singing it in the kitchen on a Christmas morning. The top note of the soprano on the record also reminds him of Julia, who once told him it was her favourite.

A rustle of noise close to him draws Paul's mind away from the songs and down to where John's hands are now moving, fag gone and crushed out on the floor. He's tossing something from hand to hand, something small and crackling with flashes of white.

It takes Paul a moment to realise what it is. The mistletoe. Cynthia's mistletoe.

He barely has a second to let the information sink in before something is being thrown through the air at him, too hard and too fierce to be a casual throw. Paul catches the delicate, fine mistletoe by the tips of his fingers and looks up at John, who is now helpfully squinting at the brickwork behind him.

"John?"

"What?" The reply is sharp and quick and defensive and Paul considers why. 

"You alright?"

He doesn't get an answer, so eventually Paul chucks the mistletoe back. It catches John unawares, hitting his face.

"You prick," John says, and Paul gets an uncontrollable urge to laugh.

"I think I'm a prick with hypothermia, though."

"Why don't you fuck off back inside, then?" John asks, his tone suddenly hard and brittle. Paul realises that if he wants to, now is the time to go. John's giving him an opportunity. He considers it.

"Well, it's shit in there, isn't it?" He answers, as casual as possible.

In return he gets the mistletoe thrown at him again. Feeling the fragile, gentle weight of it in his hands, Paul opens his mouth to say something and is interrupted by the back door of the house opening behind him, noise and light spilling into the yard. 

A kid a couple of years younger than them steps out, ciggie already between his lips ready to light when John's voice cuts through the air.

"Fuck off."

Paul watches the lad's face crease briefly into anger, then upon squinting through the darkness and recognising who owns the voice, he seems to deflate. Taking the fag back out of his mouth he turns hurriedly and disappears, back into the house. The distant strains of Rock Island Line go with him, and the back door is a fortress once again.

"I think I actually saw him shit himself," Paul grins, and watches John's face crease into a smile too. "Any idea who he is?"

"None at all," John replies, and they suddenly both laugh at the poor bastard frightened at a Christmas party.

"What d'you reckon they're up to at the Kaiser tonight, then?" Paul asks, throwing the mistletoe lightly enough to instigate a game rather than a war. John picks up quickly, passes it back.

"Leg breaking, boozing, whoring."

"Just the usual, then?"

"Better than this boring hole," John replies, still playing the passing game. Paul doesn't know what happens when it stops, but he suspects he's going to find out.

"Got no one screaming at us to 'mach shau' though."

"No, just telling us we're a waste of space in English instead."

Paul barely falters with the mistletoe. "That what Mimi really said?"

John shrugs. "Something like that."

Paul thinks it was probably less than that. A lot less. "Cyn's glad to have you back though."

John sighs, the noise loud and exasperated in the cold night air. "Bloody hell, is that what you want to talk about - Cynthia?"

The mistletoe thrown at his this time is a little bit forceful. Paul passes it immediately back. He isn't sure quite what to say, feels like John is waiting for _him_ to make some sort of move here. To _do_ something. For a second they're just staring at each other. It's terrifying and electric all at the same time. 

Paul has his hands out to catch the mistletoe on it's return throw, but it never actually comes. After a moment, he catches John's eyes again in the darkness. He's squinting at him, something defensive and unnamable in his gaze. Paul realises that maybe the game has stopped already.

"You going to give that back here, then?"

John looks almost angry, and for a second Paul wonders again if he's read this wrong. Whatever this is. 

Wordlessly, John holds the mistletoe out.

Feeling slightly stupid and completely and utterly like he's going out on a limb, Paul takes it from him and yanks open the gate leading out into the quiet, snow-muffled ginnel. It's empty, and he's about to turn around to tell John to follow him when he feels a body behind his, pressing against his back. Paul tries not to shudder.

In the darkness of the passageway, Paul leans against the wall and - feeling alive with madness - holds the mistletoe just slightly over his head.

"Come here, then," he says, and even his words sound quiet amongst the still falling snow.

John watches him for a moment, as though waiting for him to back down, and then suddenly - fiercely - he's against Paul's mouth, lips warm and chapped and damp from the cold night air. Paul drops the mistletoe and fists a hand in the collar of John's leather jacket, pulling him closer. It's not very gentle but then neither is the heavy, demanding press of John's hips against his, pinning him sharply to the wall. 

Gentle would be wrong through, he thinks, as fingers curl up into his hair, sending a wave of pleasure right down into Paul's stomach. He nips at John's bottom lip and feels the frantic, desperate slide of a tongue against his. 

It shouldn't be this fast, this frenetic but it is, and Paul realises he's gasping into the unnatural silence of the alleyway, his voice falling on nothing but snow as John pushes a thigh between his legs, shifting against him. He's had fast, quick sessions like this with girls before, but never as desperately, illicitly thrilling as this. Paul is hard inside his jeans and drags John's hips against him so that he can feel it, has his mouth taken again in response as a hand finds his and is pressed against matching denim. The feeling of John hard beneath his palm should probably feel wrong but it doesn't and Paul cuts off the groan starting in the back of his throat, fingers curling around the shape of John's erection. 

Their lips brush again, just as frantic but not as rough, somehow. Paul lets John mouth his upper lip, wants to let his head fall back against the wall because - _oh._ That is good. He remembers the insistent, heavy look in John's eyes when he was watching him with Cynthia earlier and the hand not occupied rubbing at the hard length of John's dick through his jeans slides up into messy hair that is shining auburn in the low gleam of light from the house across the way. Paul stops kissing him, opens his eyes and makes sure John opens his too so that he sees who is doing this to him, palming him carefully through denim. He lets his fingers play gently down at the nape of John's neck, skin cool from being exposed under the collar of his jacket. As though he likes it, can barely keep his eyes open, John flickers briefly and then dips back down to take Paul's mouth again. Cold fingers tilt his chin and Paul lets John have as much as he wants, tongues sliding against each other in a way that feels more intimate than anything he's ever done with anyone.

A squeeze of Paul's fingers has the rhythm of John's hips suddenly faltering against him, changing and becoming sharper, more desperate. The hand buried in Paul's hair grasps and tightens with each thrust until all of a sudden Paul can feel him coming against his palm, hot and sticky inside the tight denim of his jeans. It sends a wave of something heavy and molten through Paul's stomach, knowing _he_ did that, and he lets John thrust against him haphazardly until it's over, face buried into the warm crook of Paul's neck. They're both breathing fast and sharp in the cold night air and the sound of it is sharp against his skin, as though everything makes him sensitive now; everything. 

He's still hard and aching and desperately close but he waits, still tickling the back of John's neck.

The world is completely and utterly still for a moment, snow muting even the carols from across the way and the distant bass of the music from the party. But then John is moving, kissing at the edge of Paul's jaw and he feels his body thrumming again with unspent energy. His dick feels tight and trapped in his jeans, thighs tense with the strain.

When John starts fucking him against the wall, Paul almost groans with relief, catches John's mouth again as hips grind against his. The thigh still nestled between his legs giving him something to rock against and the feeling is far too good, almost painful it's so nice and Paul never, ever wants this to end, even as he feels his orgasm rushing up on him. He pulls John's hips closer, fingers curling into his belt-loops and tugging at him desperately.

"Yes..." he mutters against John's mouth, eyes screwed tightly from the sensations. He feels John licking at his bottom lip, bumps their noses together, brushing very briefly, nuzzling him.

When it comes the moment sends a blinding sort of light behind Paul's eyelids and he grasps out, clutching onto any part of John that he can, one hand fisting in his jacket, the other curling around his neck. John never stops him, lets him ride it out against him slowly until his dick feels too sensitive inside his own messed-up jeans.

On the floor beside them, the mistletoe just lies there, quietly being covered in snow. When they eventually stumble away to the warm, clean bath together at Forthlin Road, they've already forgotten about it altogether.


End file.
